1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a method and system for migrating storage media.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Magnetic storage media, such as a video cassette recorder (VCR) cassettes or the like, is an inexpensive and convenient medium for recording and preserving large quantities of recorded content. Long-term preservation of the recorded data on magnetic storage media is limited by the integrity of the storage media. Current storage media do not guarantee long-term preservation. Prior methods have been devised to migrate recorded data from a source storage media onto one or more destination storage media with a projected capability of longer-term preservation of data. However, these prior methods are limited in applicability because of high cost and low production output due to the use of specialized techniques that were unable to handle large-scale processing demands.
One prior art solution, utilizes extensive work and migration handlers. For example, each storage media is manually inspected to determine the level of degradation prior to execution of the migration. On average, between 5% and 10% of storage media were actually degraded or required such special needs. Thus, the inspection process added a significant time interval into the entire migration process which is reflected in excessive cost and slow productivity. In this prior art method, the cost of the migration process is estimated to be between $250 to $400 per hour. The reasoning for this estimate is because a specialized facility is used where trained migration technicians examine each storage media. Furthermore, because the migration technicians individually inspect each storage media, migration facilities are limited to, at most, 10,000 migrations per year. At this level of production, the heritage contained on the storage media will disintegrate before it can be migrated and preserved. However, because inspection was necessary to ensure the full efficacy of the migration, it is recommended that there be modification to the process of migration and preservation of storage media while retaining some form of an inspection process.
Therefore, to avoid excessive costs, a migration technique is needed where degraded storage media can be efficiently separated from non-degraded storage media. The process of separating the storage media may include categorizing the storage media based upon the state of degradation. Storage media determined to be in a non-degraded state can be migrated quickly, while storage media determined to be in a degraded state can be given the appropriate additional restoration for possible migration.